


Ficlet: Breaking The Habit

by Lanna Michaels (lannamichaels)



Category: Lord of the Rings (2001 2002 2003), Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: April Showers Challenge 2011, Song Lyric Title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-06-11
Updated: 2003-06-11
Packaged: 2017-10-18 14:37:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lannamichaels/pseuds/Lanna%20Michaels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Linkin Park Soundtrack Fic. Along with random Three Doors Down "When I'm Gone".</p>
    </blockquote>





	Ficlet: Breaking The Habit

**Author's Note:**

> Linkin Park Soundtrack Fic. Along with random Three Doors Down "When I'm Gone".

  
Aragorn stared down at his blooded hands. The bright red blood of a

-friend-

-brother-

-lover-

 _subject_ mingling with the mud of the battlefield, turning it a rusty brown. The color of pain, Aragorn thought. The color of my pain. The color of dried blood of one who would never breathe again. Who would never live again. Who would never love again.

Aragorn could see clearly now how things had gone from bad to worse. He had misjudged Boromir from the start, seeing only the Captain and never the man. He had looked at a man who was unafraid to speak his thoughts and saw only arrogance and weakness. He had gazed upon a man of passion and seen only his treacherous desires. He had

-failed-

-triumphed-

-lost everything-

 _misjudged_ the meanings of the man. Boromir had never attempted to bar Aragorn from the throne. His misgivings were those of a man to whom a claim had not been proven, only assumed. No one had taken the time to explain the why to Boromir nor the cause of the War. And all Boromir knew was war. Of course he would sacrifice all to end it.

He had been a fool. Boromir had wanted the Ring, yes. But only to do what he could not: save his beloved Gondor. What Aragorn had seen as a bid for personal power, Boromir only wanted as a way to free his people of the fear of Mordor. Aragorn had lived long enough as a man to know better, yet he had not.

He had failed this man. This Boromir. This Steward's son.

Aragorn closed his eyes in defeat and saw Denethor's mocking face before him. _'Thorongil, the great captain of Gondor. Always with a quick word in the name of action, never a moment to pause and reflect. You have killed my son.'_ As surely as if he had shot the arrows that took Boromir's life as their cold revenge for being hewn, Aragorn had killed Boromir.

And he had done it slowly. Piece by piece he had chipped away at Boromir's will to live. First he had not protested when Legolas claimed Boromir's home as Aragorn's birthright, then he had declared his lineage upon an innocuous question. He had answered the hobbits' questions with more information than necessary and watched dispassionatly as Boromir excused himself from the fire. He had inquired whether Boromir was a learned man and had answered without answering when Boromir had replied in the negative, but that his brother was. He had killed Boromir every day they had been together.

And what for? For a trinket of gold around a hobbit's neck?

No. For Gondor.

For men and Rangers and Arnor, the shattered realm. For a home he had never truly had, for belonging. For never having to live with the nightmare of dying with the knowledge that no one had ever truly loved him.

Aragorn felt the first tears prickle at his eyes. Boromir would have loved him. The courtship would have to have been slow and it would have been hard. Boromir would not have wanted to be wooed by the man who would steal his beloved. But Aragorn would have persevered until Boromir would have smiled at him, truly smiled, and confided in him the way a man does to a comrade in arms. Not to a hollow brother who had never deserved the title. Not to an absent king who would give a thousand crowns to have a dead man alive in his arms once more.

Boromir would have been a jewel in his crown, Aragorn's jewel. Faithful and by his side always, mostly silent except for when he had something to say. Blunt Boromir the bold; brave Boromir the fair; Boromir the tall, beloved of the line of sea kings. Boromir the beautiful.

His Boromir.

A sword by his side and the man in his bed, always willing, always ready and eager to serve his king. But nothing, not the years, not the memories, not the scars fading into a dying dream, would have dimmed Boromir's wit, his cunning, or the way he

-smiled-

-laughed

-loved-

spoke with his soft tones wrapped around him like a cloak, quick to be cast off when the need for harshness arose. Forever second in the kingdom, but first in the hearts of his brother, his people, his king. Always himself and never changing.

And...and now Boromir would never change. He would lie still in the elven craft and flow slowly onward to the sea, to Eressea, to the elves who would guard his body like a precious treasure. Like the jewel of Gondor that he was.

And he would never be seen again by those who looked for him from the Great Gate, or looked to the Tower in the morning to see his shadow fall on the City he gave his life to defend. Those who knew him best would comfort each other with stories of valor and great deeds, while the king who watched the steward's son die would sit sadly and try to remember when it would have been so easy, so easy, to turn back, to embrace his

-brother-

-soldier-

-subject-

friend, to start again. To be able to reach out his hand and see the man Boromir had truly been, not the man he had shown to elves he did not trust and a company he did not want. Boromir had looked his last into the West and with his dying breath, he had hoped for peace.

And Aragorn will look for answers from the White Tower, but they will not be found.  
   
 


End file.
